A small step for one person, a huge leap for EUVOLIA project: on May 14, our first graduates, students of the Faculties of History and Foreign Philology, presented their final projects.
It’s hard to define who felt more excited – students or teachers, for these short (up to 15 minutes) presentations were supposed to reflect the results of all five modules of EUVOLIA course applied to yet uncharted media products. And we proudly confirm that our graduates hit it out of the park!
To begin with, the very choice of products should be praised. The first research group focused upon the popular Ukrainian comedy “Crazy wedding” debunking many racial prejudices and stereotypes still shared by our society. The second group decided to analyze the ground-breaking series “People’s Servant” dedicated to Ukrainian vision of an ideal leader, our expectations from the government and people vs state relationship.
Both groups followed the EUVOLIA methodology of axiological analysis in terms of defining positive and negative character building techniques (from the details of appearance and behavior to the messages delivered). type of conflict, driving oppositions (city vs village, nature vs civilization), gender aspects (applying Bechdel test to the product) etc. The conclusions were rather unexpected: sometimes the superficial pro-European messages declared by product directors would contradict the deeper inner codes of the product, and the “ideal leader” would turn into dictator. As one of the EUVOLIA teachers, Oleksandra Nikolova, aptly pointed out, we pay lots of attention to what we eat, but tend to ignore the ingredients of media products we consume.
All the students unanimously agreed that one of the most important lessons EUVOLIA course delivered was to apply critical and analytical approach to popular culture as a steady public opinion barometer.
Following a heated discussion, the honorable jury presented by Stanislav Cherkasov, Kateryna Vasylyna, Oleksandra Nikolova and Olena Tupakhina, awarded max points to all the projects presented. Apart from that, each student got an international project participant certificate that would definitely come in handy in their further careers, i.e. when applying for Master degree.
On behalf of EUVOLIA team we sincerely congratulate our first graduates and wish them good luck with further research and academic activities!